


Traumas

by Sarah_Ellie



Series: Against His Heart [4]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, mentions of torture, post-torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-16
Updated: 2013-02-22
Packaged: 2017-11-29 11:18:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/686360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarah_Ellie/pseuds/Sarah_Ellie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Q's capture by Cambodian drug lords, he faces a long recovery and a splintered relationship with Bond.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Un Beta'd.

Healing is not easy. 

For the first week after Q is rescued from his captors, it is uncertain whether he would survive the extent of his injuries, the rampaging infection, and the extensive dehydration. Q spent that week in a heavy sleep that was haunted by nightmares and terrors that were new to him. Even as a child, Q hadn’t been afraid of the dark or of monsters. 

Now he knew better. 

The nightmares were endless. He re-lived his torture over and over again; the whips slashing his back and the heat of the dank room that he had been trapped in. While his body slowly decided that it would piece itself back together, his mind began to splinter into pieces. 

They moved him from the hospital to a rehabilitation center in the countryside for a little while. For the most part, Bond and Q spent their days with only each other and a small nursing staff. They didn’t talk about the incident while Q was bedridden, his skin too delicate to handle the flexibility required to walk. 

Some mornings, after the pain had kept Q awake all night, he would wish that he were dead. Or had died. Sometimes, he believed that maybe he had died and he was living in an incredibly mundane hell. But he knew that hell was impossible, because James wouldn’t have been there, and Bond was the only person tethering Q to any sense of reality. 

“When can I go home?” Q began to ask eventually, when he was well enough to take short walks around the gardens of the rehab. 

“Soon.” Bond promised. Their walks were slow, between Bond’s lingering leg injury and Q’s frail state. 

Q realized that they were the perfect picture of what happened to two lovers from MI6. They were a cautionary tale. A tragedy. A Romeo and Juliet for their time where fates had decided to be cruel and leave the lovers torn and bloody and broken. 

Death would be mercy to Q, who could not justify an existence with so much pain. 

One night, Bond found a cup with a half dozen sleeping pills collected at the bottom. Q couldn’t come up with a good enough excuse as to why he had them. 

“You want out that badly, Q?” Bond asked, sitting at the edge of Q’s bed. He held the cup in his hand, and the pills rattled quietly whenever he moved. 

“I want the option, James.” Q said quietly. 

“You can pull through this, Q. I know you can.” Bond laid a hand on Q’s thigh, which was under a few layers of blankets. 

“Yeah.” Q said, but he didn’t sound convinced. Bond didn’t know what else he could say to him. 

Bond flushed the pills and no longer allowed Q out of his sight. Bond was in the room for every waking moment of the day, the sole exception being whenever the nurses came int o change Q’s dressings. 

“I don’t want you to see.” Q would say, looking with significance at the privacy curtain that was gathered near his bed. 

“Q, please.” Bond said. “You don’t have to be embarrassed.” 

“No, James. Not yet.” Q was adamant, and so the nurses drew the curtain and Bond waited out of sight, listening to Q’s quiet sobs as his skin was poked and prodded. 

During those long minutes, all Bond could think was how Q hadn’t had anything to do with the Cambodian drug ring that had abducted him. All that they had wanted was to hurt Bond, and they chose Q as their tool. 

Now, Q would be marred for the rest of his life. 

After a little while, the staff of the rehab put Q on antidepressants and forced him to attend therapy. He wasn’t responsive. Bond began to drink more, and his leg bothered him more than it ever had in the past. 

For three weeks, Q stayed in the rehab, closed off to nearly the entire world. He felt Bond becoming further and further away as he retreated into himself. Finally, the day came when Q was allowed to return to the flat that he shared with Bond. 

Bond packed all of Q’s things from the rehab and carefully helped to lower Q into the passenger seat of his car. He drove as smoothly as he could manage through the London traffic, and pulled up to the curb of their home. 

“Ready?” Bond asked, staring out the window to their front door. 

“I haven’t figured that out yet.” Q replied.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Un-Beta'd

After only two weeks, thick layers of dust began to cover most of the flat. Bond and Q spent most of their time in the bedroom. Bond got up to make the occasional meal and tea and to spend a few hours a day walking up and down the hallway outside of the bedroom to stretch his leg. 

Q refused to leave the vicinity of the bed. 

He would leave to use the bathroom, or when a rehabilitation nurse would come to the flat to check how his healing was progressing. Otherwise, Bond had a hard time even getting him to sit up to re-dress his wounds, which Q begrudgingly allowed him to do twice a day. 

They talked a little, mostly about things of no consequence. Bond heard the nightmares, and was there with open arms when Q woke up, hurting and sweaty, in the early hours of the morning. Sometimes Bond would try to get Q to talk about it, but Q always refused. 

“Let me do your dressings.” Bond said one evening, after he had set out the supplies in the bathroom. He had limped back to the bedroom, relieved to find Q awake. 

Q sighed but slowly got up, and Bond reached out so that he could steady his broken Quartermaster. Together, they hobbled into the bathroom, and Q sat down on a stool near the tub. 

Delicately, Bond peeled back the bandages to reveal Q’s destroyed skin. Goosebumps always pricked up on Q’s skin once the bandages were peeled away, mostly from the sudden exposure of his skin. Bond took a very soft cloth and dabbed away any lingering bits of medicated ointment before applying a new layer of cream. As his fingers trailed along Q’s skin, he could feel the muscles tensing under his hands. He then re-bandaged Q, careful not to put any pressure on the raw skin as it slowly mended itself. By the time he had finished, the muscles in Q’s body were so tense that they trembled slightly. 

Bond quickly washed his hands and walked around Q, whose eyes were squeezed shut, his hands clenched so tightly that small cuts formed in his palms. 

“We’re all done, Q.” Bond said softly, easing Q’s grip so that he could entwine his own fingers in Q’s. 

Q breathed deeply, nostrils flared, as he nodded the tiniest bit. 

“I’m sorry.” Q whispered, his tired eyes watered when he finally opened them.

“You don’t need to be sorry.” Bond replied. He stood and held out his arm to help Q back into bed. 

As the days stretched on, Bond began to feel increasingly frustrated. He hadn’t felt so helpless in a very long time. Q was never more than a room away, sometimes not even a few inches, and while they shared touches and small comforts and the occasional lingering kiss, Bond felt as if he were losing Q to a monster that he didn’t know how to fight. 

Finally, Bond called Moneypenny. They met a block away for coffee, which was a small feat, as Bond hadn’t wanted to leave Q’s side. 

“He doesn’t talk much. Some days he won’t even look at me.” Bond said, his hands folded on the table. 

“This is a lot for him.” Moneypenny said, gently placing her hand on top of Bond’s. “He’s just in shock. This is going to take awhile for him to recover from.”

“I can’t get him to leave the bedroom.” Bond said, rubbing his chin tiredly. “I’ve tried to get him out of the flat, but he refuses.”

“He was abducted from the doorstep, Bond. “ Moneypenny’s tone was patient, even if her eyes betrayed slight concern. “He’s living every day not twenty feet from the place they grabbed him from.”

Bond thought for a moment, and remembered something Q had suggested right before his abduction. 

“I think I have an idea.” Bond said, pulling out his phone. “But I’ll need to talk to M.”


End file.
